SOCIETIES FOE PURCHASE AND SALE 125 



had difficulties in controlling the goods supplied by manu- 

 facturers or merchants abroad. 



Similar conditions in the trade in these commodities were 

 found in England and Germany, and England was the first 

 country in which societies were formed for the joint purchase 

 of seed, manures, feeding-stuffs and also machinery and 

 implements in order not only to buy cheaper but to secure a 

 guarantee of the quality and other characters required in the 

 purchased articles. These societies, formed in England and 

 Scotland during the seventies, were somewhat on the hnes of the 

 co-operative supply societies. The oldest society of this kind 

 in England, and probably the oldest in the world, is the Agri- 

 cultural and Horticultural Association, formed in 1867, and 

 managed by Mr. Edward Owen Greening, whose name is so 

 well known in co-operative circles in England, and, indeed, 

 in all countries. In Germany the Raiffeisen banks worked 

 partly with the same aim, and through these banks the move- 

 ment spread to several other countries. 



Denmark was rather late in the field, so far as the applica- 

 tion of co-operative principles to joint purchase is concerned. 

 This may to some extent be due to the fact that co-operative 

 supply societies and co-operative dairy societies began fairly 

 early to purchase seed, manures and feeding-stuffs for farmers 

 in their districts, but not in a co-operative way and without 

 forming separate societies for the purchase. In 1869 and 1870 

 four fairly large societies for the purchase of manures were 

 formed, and during the following years a good many similar 

 societies for the purchase of manures, seed, feeding-stuffs, 

 and a few other articles. But most of these were small and of 

 only local importance, and taken all together they supplied 

 only a small fraction of the requirements of farmers. Joint 

 purchase and distribution on co-operative lines were started 

 at the end of the eighties by the Co-operative Wholesale Society 

 in Copenhagen, and in 1886 by the society in the Ringkobing 

 district, as mentioned on page 30. 



What roused Danish farmers to have recourse to co-opera- 

 tion in the supply of these commodities was an act on the part 

 of the trade which was interpreted as an attempt to form a 

 trust for the purpose of making farmers pay higher prices. In 



